Sunday, October 29, 2006

I know it's hard to think of dignity when one is hungry, poor, and in desperate need of a home. However, I still believe that dignity is much more important than money. As head of the food chain, we are all endowed with dignity by our Creator. It's the only thing that all of us have equal share with, and yet we destroy and sell it for less.

Over the years the way we sell our dignity has varied, and in the same way, the reasons for selling are just as varied. Money over dignity, security over dignity, drugs over dignity, desperation over dignity, peer pressure over dignity.

Whatever the reason, God frowns on us giving our dignity away. It's the only thing God gave us in equal doses, but comes with a slogan: sell at your own risk. The occasion we sell our dignity is the ocassion we turn our face away from God and let darkness reign upon us.

I work with middle to lower income employees and witness many falter with their values system and cheapening their worth for peer pressure. Whenever there is a problem, our employees cover it up, afraid that if they speak up, their coworkers will turn against them. It is the worst case of "pakikisama" and a complicated case of bullyism/terrorism. They don't want to rise up for what they believe is right because they don't want to "rock the boat" or risk themselves. It's a shame, whenever I think of it, because in some other areas, they are pretty much vocal and outspoken. They fall despairingly short on other things.

If the hoi polloi has this kind of distorted values system, why are we still surprised that we have a distorted government? We only attract the kind of government we want by the kind of people we are, and if we are the kind of people who would gladly sell their dignities and not strive for what is right, then that only trickles down to everything we do.

There is no excuses, and the minority of us in the right are muted. What are we to do?